But these words might have been uttered in real-life by Dangerfield after he finally realized what a sorry, losing venture he had gotten himself into with "Ladybugs."

One of life's losers, Rodney's Chester Lee is a salesman with a shoeshine and a smile who definitely is the low man on his company's totem pole.

Chester wants to marry his eternally patient fiancee Bess (Ilene Graff) and settle down with her and her teenage son Matthew (Jonathan Brandis) and live happily ever after.

But first the good-humored, hapless lug has to go to his boss and ask -- that is, beg -- for a raise that might ensure his hopes for marital bliss.

Confused and intimidated as soon as he steps into his boss's executive suite, Chester agrees to coach the girls' soccer team sponsored by the company and featuring none other than the boss's teenage daughter Kimberly (Vinessa Shaw). Chester, who has just taken a badly needed but totally ineffective assertiveness course, practically grovels at his boss's feet. And even though he knows absolutely zilch about soccer, he immediately agrees to coach the team.

If he can come up with a championship season, his boss tells him, he'll get his raise and an office all his own.

Chester seeks a little help from his friends, including Julie Benson, a fellow worker who is drafted into becoming his assistant coach in this hopeless venture.

Benson is played with amusing flair by Jackee, one of the few bright spots in "Ladybugs." But not even Jackee's luminous performance can transform the dim "Ladybugs" into lightning bugs.

Chester's biggest boost comes when he taps the talents of young Matthew -- his future stepson, who's a soccer whiz. Chester

persuades Matthew, a super jock, to dress in drag and play on the team.

Miraculously, this ruse fools everybody, even though Matthew's blond wig looks unsteady as he speeds to victory on the field. The wig -- a rather thin, shaky sham perpetually teetering on toppling to the ground -- is a most apt symbol for this unsteady movie.

Directed by Sidney J. Furie and written by Curtis Burch -- co-conspirators in the creation of this dud -- the movie keeps tripping over itself and never once comes close to scoring a goal.

Even worse than the direction and writing is Dan Burstall's cheesy photography, a soft, odorous style of cinematograpahy best described as being in the Liederkranz school.

True, the supporting cast is not bad. And true, Dangerfield does get off a few brisk Rodneyesque gags.

"On Christmas they must hang her and kiss the mistletoe," our hero says when confronted by a tough-talking, Teutonic rival coach who might well have been successful teaching soccer to Hitler youth in Nazi Germany.

Trying to pump some life into this sagging soccer saga, Dangerfield bounces around jokes like this, mugs manically and shows some of that outrageous mix of vitality and vulgarity that have made him a hall-of-fame stand-up comic.

But despite his heroic efforts, Dangerfield just can't get this lame movie moving.

In desperation, he kicks to death a whole squad full of gags about cross-dressing. But even these are a drag.

Obviously, Rodney and everyone else implicated in "Ladybugs" won't get much respect for this klunker. By comparison, his "Back to School" looks like a comedy classic.

Instead of back to school, "Ladybugs" should have been sent back to the cradle, where it could reflect upon the infantile plot and sophomoric gags that infest it from beginning to end.